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EDUC 630 Professional Development Session Mike Dappolone, Mark Hayden, Jenny Line, and Mark Bruder University of Pennsylvania November 1, 2008 Introduction The purpose of our professional development presentation was to provide fellow chemistry teachers with the theoretical basis, content applications, instructional functions, and the practical means of performing chemical demonstrations within the classroom. Llewellyn (2005) suggests that effective teachers utilize demonstration techniques when: it is beneficial for all students to witness the same outcome; a phenomenon leads to potentially dangerous or uncertain results; time or budget constraints exist. Although in the traditional sense they are primarily didactic in nature, demonstrations can often also employ aspects of constructivism, one of the major theories supporting the teaching and learning of science as inquiry. Brooks and Brooks (1999) define constructivist teachers as those that place high value on student questions, actively diagnose existing conceptions, and mediate the learning environment to allow for discoveries that facilitate the modification of existing knowledge. In our presentation, we focused on three main functions for effective demonstrations: as anticipatory sets, as a means of diagnosing conceptions/misconceptions, and as a learning tool. Using demonstrations as anticipatory sets not only sparks student interest through unexpected events, but also generates new questions that can lead to scientific inquiry. In terms of diagnosing conceptions, demonstrations provide learners with the opportunity to challenge their own existing beliefs and provide teachers with the chance to gauge prior knowledge, which impacts future instruction. And finally, using demonstrations as a learning tool promotes teacher-initiated and student-initiated inquiry. A very practical teaching strategy that we used in our presentation is the Predict-Observe-Explain method, which conveniently models the scientific method. Since many public and private school districts are limited in funding that could provide instructional resources, chemicals, and equipment to perform chemical demonstrations, we aimed to bridge this gap by focusing our presentation on demonstrations that can be done with common substances available at local stores, and with cheap, common equipment. In addition, we sought to provide our audience with an array of easily accessible instructional resources that include over twenty descriptions of example demonstrations. Planning & Preparation Planning and preparation for the professional development presentation relied mainly upon short but efficient and effective sessions during which all presenters could meet in person or communicate over the phone or online. Collective meetings took place before and after class at Penn, and during lunch breaks. A lot of communication also resulted in phone conversations and through the use of online meetings carried out through America Online Instant Messaging. These meetings allowed us to allocate responsibilities to individual presenters, prepare timelines, and make other important decisions. Resources, the presentation outline, drafts of various components for the professional development project, and revisions and feedback of those drafts were shared primarily via email. The following flow chart shows the main components of the professional development project, and the steps we took to get to our final products. Summary of the PD Session The presentation from which the slides below are drawn can be downloaded in its entirety here [ppt]. The workshop occurred during the afternoon session of class on Saturday, November 1, 2009. The audience included members of MCEP Cohort 8, Jane Horwitz (Associate Director, Penn STI), and Dr. Wesley Pitts (Instructor, EDUC636). In an effort to align with the goals of the workshop, the presentation took place at the University of Pennsylvania Chemistry Building in a regular classroom with no running water, sinks, or gas jets. Mike Dappolone started off the presentation by introducing the group members and discussing the goals of our presentation. About the Project Mark Hayden followed by introducing the theoretical basis for the workshop. Theoretical Basis Jenny Line then described how the subsequent demonstrations were going to be organized based on this theory and how they could be used to teach chemistry. Mark Bruder presented the first anticipatory set demonstration, the Whoosh Bottle (click here to see the video). He illustrated how demonstrations could be used as an attention-getter or “invitation to inquiry.” He also addressed relevant safety precautions. Mark Hayden continued with two additional anticipatory set demonstrations using dry ice. The first was simply dry ice placed in water with universal indicator. The second was CO2 States demo (click here to see the video), which allows students to see all three states of CO2 and includes a small but carefully controlled explosion. Mark Hayden then presented Egg in a Flask (click here to see the video), a demonstration used for diagnosing conceptions. He collected predictions from members of Cohort 8 and wrote them on the board to illustrate how an instructor could plan instruction based on the prior knowledge of his or her learners. Jenny Line started the “Learning Tool” portion of the presentation with Lycopodium Dust Explosion. She also collected predictions and challenged audience members to come up with the chemical concepts before dazzling us with the demonstration. Mark Bruder finished the “Learning Tool” portion with Elephant Toothpaste, a fan favorite. He concluded his demonstration with a thorough explanation of how he integrates the content into his classes. Mike Dappolone put the icing on the cake with a several demonstrations related to gas laws including Filling Flask (click here to see the video), Crushed Can (click here to see the video), and some specific examples of how demonstrations could be used as an assessment tool. Mike also took the lead on introducing the companion manual and website. Application to Enduring Understandings Application to University of PENN STI E-Portfolio: EU 2: Chemistry is an experimental science where bridges are built between experimental observations and underlying concepts. This professional development allowed us to demonstrate how educators can make a connection between abstract chemistry concepts and experimental observations of these concepts. EU 3: Qualitative ideas can be transformed into quantitative expressions. This PD shows educators how students can make simple observations and how those observations can be transformed by a chemical reaction to produce a quantitative result. EU 6: Teacher-participants become confident life-long learners and reflective practitioners through their MCE coursework and experiences. This PD shows how teachers can take concepts learned from the classroom and literature and express it through demonstrations. Application to EDU 636 Enduring Understandings: EU 1: Understanding the connections between socio-cultural and other educational theories and the teaching and learning practice that enables teachers to develop the capacity to support and guide all students with diverse interests, abilities, and experiences in making sense of scientific ideas. Professional teachers and students come from all different backgrounds in all different educational settings. This PD was designed to try and accommodate educators and learners in all different types of environments from educators who have full labs at their disposal versus educators who have very little to no chemicals at their disposal. EU 4: The professional educator is committed to life-long learning, employing information literacy skills to obtain this knowledge utilizing technology, science and science education journals, as well as professional organizations and collegial collaborations to enhance their learning. As educators we have taken knowledge from different sources and used it to develop or modify chemical demonstrations not only to use in own classrooms but to present to our colleagues for them to expand their own chemistry knowledge and present them with new tools to use in their own classrooms. EU 7: The professional educator assumes leadership roles and communicates with colleagues and other professional educators the analysis of their own practice (orally and in writing) so that they become catalytic in improving teaching and learning in their schools, districts and/or state. This PD allowed us as educators to take our previous knowledge and convert it into demonstrations which will try and enhance our classmates knowledge of using experiments to further explain chemistry topics to their own students. This allowed us to take a leadership role among our peers and try to convey different techniques they can use in their own classrooms. Class Survey Results In an effort to collect some feedback about the professional development session and establish a baseline for our University of Pennsylvania MCE portfolios, we conducted a brief electronic survey to conclude the session. Click here for the compiled survey results. References Click here for a list of references

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